A Proper Family
by Bearandthebigbluebox
Summary: The newly regenerated Doctor and Clara run into some people that the Doctor never thought he'd see again. Does his older face reflect his capability to handle new responsibilities?
1. Chapter 1

"Doctor,iIf I can't even find the loo on my own in your ship, how the hell am I supposed to fly it?!"

This new Doctor looked at her with wide eyes and then frantically ran around the console.

"Okay, just like last time. We're crashing."

He stared at the monitor for a second then turned to Clara with a smile.

"We're not crashing!"

"We're not?" She asked as relief rushed through her.

"No, no we're not crashing. Something's crashing into us!"

She rolled her eyes. Wonderful, she thought. She was about to voice some of her opinions out loud when the tardis took a sickening lurch, and threw them both on the ground. She looked up at the Doctor and studied his now much older features for the first time and looked at him for an explanation.

"Don't you worry, my impossible girl. I don't know what hit us, but nothing's getting past those doors."

She sighed and reached for his hand and as they dusted themselves off, the tardis doors flew wide open.

"You are really not getting it today, are you?" She asked with one slim eyebrow raised.

He stared open-mouthed at the door and a young, blonde woman ran in looking as frazzled as they did.

She stopped when she looked at the Doctor and Clara, confusion written all over her petite features.

"Daddy?"


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor got up quicker than seemed possible and ran over to the girl. He raised his hand to her cheek and whispered in a hoarse voice, "Jenny?"

She flinched away from his touch and pulled the gun from the strap that went across her body.

"Who are you? You're not the Doctor. What have you done with him?"

He stared down the barrel of her gun and her ice cold glare yet still leaned towards her.

"Jenny, it's me. I am the Doctor. Timelords have a way of cheating death sweetheart, our molecules regenerate and we become new people. When you got shot and didn't regenerate I thought... You know... I never would've left you if I'd known."

Tears had become slipping down his cheek and Jenny dropped her gun and threw her arms around him. His sincerity left no doubt in her mind that he was telling the truth. It didn't matter if it didn't make sense, she was just glad to be in her father's warm embrace again.

Clara, who had been watching their encounter intently cleared her throat and waited till the Doctor turned around to question him.

"I'm sorry, did she say 'daddy'? You have a daughter?! But how?"

He smiled and put his hand on the small of his daughter's back and led her forward towards the other woman.

"Clara Oswald, meet Jenny. Made from my cells and born from a machine. She's my daughter. And she's just brilliant."

Jenny smiled up at him brightly and turned to Clara. As they exchanged pleasantries the Doctor's mind whirled with questions and, of course, some extra regeneration energy.

"Jenny, how did you find me? And why now?"

She gestured for them to sit down on the grate of the tardis floor and took a deep breath before explaining.

"After you left and I woke up, I stole myself an escape pod. I had planets to save and a whole lot of running to do so don't give me that look. Anyways, I had been getting dreams every night. Dreams of a crack and I would hear your voice. Except it was the voice of who you were when I was born. And it kept saying 'find him'. That's what confused me. If it were you it should've said 'find me'. Well it was enough for me to try to track you down. I met some man at a bar on the moon, a captain he was, lovely man, and he said he knew you. Also said something about a crack and a message. So I got back in my escape pod and came here."

The Doctor mulled over her story and suddenly became very still and pale.

"There is a crack in the universes that can allow things through, and there is a man in one of them who is a version of that me. And if he's talking to you, there is a 99% chance that this is very not good."

Clara rested a hand on his forearm to try to calm him down as she asked in a quiet, but sturdy voice, "How not good?"

He buried his face in his hands and said, "Imagine we're in Pompeii. And it's volcano day."


	3. Chapter 3

Both women looked at the Doctor, fear plastered on their faces like a mask. He stood up slowly and ran a hand through his short, gray hair and exhaled loudly.

"Okay. We need to go back to Trenzalore and the crack in the universe. Something's coming through it whether we like it or not. "

"But what? And why? Doctor you just spent 300 years there and almost got killed!" Clara couldn't help herself from yelling.

"300 years? Blimey you're old. Father, what's going on?"

The Doctor stared at his daughter, then at Clara, giving them both a stern look.

"No time for questions right now. We have to go."

With that he went back to the console, mumbling to himself and pressing buttons randomly until the rotor started to move. Clara noticed in a passing thought that the tardis didn't seem to be shaking or thudding when it landed as it usually did. Ignoring it, she followed the Doctor and Jenny out of the doors and into the snowy battlefield that was Trenzalore. The group made their way to the Doctor's workshop where the crack originated, dodging bullets (and Sontarans) as they ran.

Safe inside the workshop, the Doctor used his sonic on the spare wires laying around and connecting them to his small radio. He fiddled with the equipment while Clara and Jenny watched, unsure of what to do, until it came to life and they heard voices through it. Actually they heard one voice. The voice that Jenny had heard in her dreams and the one that the Doctor had had many years ago. A voice that screamed out, "Allons-y, Rose! It's going to be a bumpy ride!"


	4. Chapter 4

There was a blinding flash of light and the Doctor and his companions were thrown across the room with the wave of energy that accompanied it. When the light died down and they could properly see, they ran over to the two figures lying on the ground. They weren't the people the Doctor had been expecting to see. Instead of the younger version of himself he found two women. He slowly crouched down to the older blonde woman and brushed the hair out of her face while Jenny and Clara tried to rouse the younger girl. The Doctor glanced towards this unknown girl who had dirty blonde hair like his Rose, but had freckles scattered across her cheeks like stars. He turned back to Rose as she started to groan and sit up.

"Doctor?" She whispered looking up at him in awe.

At the sound of her voice the other girl woke up and stared at him before turning to Rose and asking, "Doctor who?"


	5. Chapter 5

There was a collective silence in the room at the voice of the younger woman. Rose sat up and cleared her throat and the Doctor noticed her silently steeling herself before she spoke.

"Sarah Jane, this is the Doctor. He has the ability to change his face when he's about to die. That's why he doesn't look like, well you know."

"Sarah? Sarah Jane?" The Doctor moved over to the girl and gazed into her chocolate brown eyes, not having paid attention to Rose's last words.

"Doctor, this is my daughter. And I guess, in a way, she's yours too."

At that the Doctor hesitated no more. He grabbed both girls by the waist with each arm and pulled them close for a hug. He buried his face in Rose's neck and then leaned down to plant a kiss in Sarah Jane's hair. She stiffened at his actions and pushed herself away from the strange man. He tried to hide the pain he felt at her rejection, but the other three women saw it clearly on his face.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm not your father, I know that, and you don't have to pretend like I am."

"Good, because my father's dead. And mum, he was your husband. And you're not even mourning him! You're sittin' here, hugging this stranger, like he's the one that just gave his life for us!" With that Sarah Jane stormed off, leaving everyone staring after her with sad eyes.

"She'll calm down. She tends to push people away when she's angry, but she always comes back sorry as ever. Her heart's too big not to."

The Doctor looked over to see the tears that hovered on the edge of her eyes. He took her hand and led her over to Clara and Jenny and the women smiled at her gently.

"Let's get everyone acquainted back on the tardis. After that Rose, you can tell us what happened to him."

She nodded and followed them out to her beloved blue box, knowing her daughter would know where to find her when she was ready.

She walked through the doors a moment too early to hear her scream.


	6. Chapter 6

"Well as you knew Doctor, the metacrisis, John was his name, he aged. But what you didn't know is that I don't. The Bad Wolf became a part of me after the game station, and it never truly left. Sarah was born about three years after you dropped us off. She's nearly thirty now you know. She aged normally until the time she was fully grown, about seventeen, and then stopped. John, well he was getting up there. We figured that his body mimicked that of a man in his seventies. He had been working on tracking the faint voices that we heard from the crack on our side, and about a week ago he figured it out. How to get back that is. All we needed was time energy, and he sacrificed the last bit that was inside himself. That was what had been keeping him alive. He's gone now."

Rose finished her story in a soft whisper, with a lone tear trailing its way down her beautiful face. The Doctor looked at her and something inside his hearts broke. He had ruined Rose Tyler's life and his only consolation had been the promise of a family, and that had apparently never really been possible.

Without saying a word, he grabbed her hand and ran his thumb across it soothingly. Rose looked up at him finally and gave him that tongue touched grin that he loved, although he could still see the sadness in her eyes. He knew what she was trying to do, something that was very, very Rose: stay strong.

"I guess it's time you meet the gang then, Ms. Tyler. Here we have the impossible Clara Oswald, and my lovely daughter who comes from no woman, just myself. It's complicated," the Doctor said vaguely while gesturing the girls.

Jenny seemed particularly interested in his past companion, though, and not introductions. She walked up cautiously towards her and looked into her big, whisky eyes. Curiously Rose stared back at her while the younger girl threw herself into Rose's arms.

"I knew it!" She exclaimed.

The rest of the group startled at her sudden announcement and turned towards her for an explanation.

"You see, I've had some time to think about my birth and existence, I'm a teenager after all I'm allowed to be curious! Anyways, I've always wondered why I was blonde but the Doctor was just sort of brown when I was born. So what I figured is that he must've had his eye on someone blonde, which is why I turned out the way I did. I am his daughter after all, so subconsciously, he had to have thought about me having a mother!"

Clara and Rose smirked while the Doctor had a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Doctor was I your pretend baby mama?" Rose teased in a sing song voice.

"Shut up. Now. All of you. We've got another or my sort of daughters to find right now."

With that he stomped through the Tardis doors, leaving the women leaning on each other as they doubled over in laughter. _Same man, different face_, Rose thought wistfully as they followed him out in search of Sarah Jane.


End file.
